Teaching Obadiah at a time like this

and finding some hope, too

My amaryllis blooming this week.

Every Christmas my aunt gives us an amaryllis bulb. I’m not sure when it started, but our family tradition is to share a picture of the first bloom. Which means, from mid-January through early February, often a dark and cold time of the year, my family group text is filled with beautiful flowers like this:

Mine was late to start blooming this year. I was worried, at first, that it wouldn’t. The tight brown walls of the bulb stayed firm, showing no change at all for a few days. I noticed a slender shoot the morning I left for London via Chicago.

“Don’t forget to water it,” I reminded my daughter.

She didn’t, and by the time I returned 10 days later, I knew it would bloom.

And it did. This week.

In fact, it is going to have two layers of blooms. Four, on the shorter stalk, have already blossomed. Five more, on the taller stalk, are just about to open. Even as I write this I can see more petals beginning to unfurl.

I know it is a small thing.

Watching an amaryllis bloom.

But it seems hopeful to me. Hopeful that the beauty of God’s world is still here. Hopeful that God is still here too, amidst the spiritual darkness, political chaos, and acts of inhumanity we have witnessed the past few days.

This is actually one of the first images I posted on my social media after my husband was fired in 2016. I took a break for two or three months, and my first or second post was my amaryllis bloom. Which means on January 14, 2017, right at the beginning of Donald Trump’s first term as president, I wrote that the flowers remind “that hope blooms everyday.”

My amaryllis sat on the table as I prepared my Sunday School lesson yesterday. Today was my first time back to church since my surgery almost three weeks ago. With my blue knee scooter I wheeled my healing leg, encased in a sky blue cast, into my familiar room. I had a big class this morning—6 people, including me. And our lesson, picking up from where I had paused our study of the Book of the Twelve before the holidays (gosh, 2024 feels so far away), was Obadiah.

Have you read Obadiah lately? Just in case you haven’t, here is “the Bible in 100 Words or Less” summary courtesy of the Bible for Normal People:

Obadiah describes God’s judgment on a people who stood idly by and watched as their neighbors were invaded, robbed, assaulted, and captured. A people who “gloated” over harm done to their neighbors, even joining with the oppressors. A people consumed by pride. A people who “cut off” the path of the fugitives seeking safety and “handed over” the refugees to their oppressors.

“For the day of the Lord is near against all nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.” Obadiah 1:15, NRSVue

That was our lesson today.

Can you imagine teaching Obadiah on this Sunday morning?

Let me tell you, it was hard to not bring our present—the billionaires who are currently taking over the U.S. government, the cruelty of Donald Trump blaming “DEI” hires that include “hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism” for the horrific crash between a passenger plane and army helicopter in D.C. last week, the rounding-up of immigrants by Trump’s mass deportation plans—into my lesson about the past.

Twenty-first century U.S. is a far cry from 6th century B.C. Judah. We can never forget that the Book of the Twelve was written in a completely different historical and cultural context from us.

Yet, isn’t it remarkable how consistent the Bible is, from Old Testament to New, on what God expects from us? To take care of the vulnerable. To not let the wealthy oppress the poor. To show hospitality to strangers (dare I say immigrants?). To love our neighbor as ourself. To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

Why would we think that God requires less of today? That suddenly putting ourselves first—as J.D. Vance recently claimed—is now what God wants of us? That Jesus’ parable about the Good Samaritan no longer applies—we don’t have to love our neighbors. That is okay for the wealthy to oppress the poor; that it is okay to act cruelly to the vulnerable; that it is okay to bully the weak.

I can’t help but hear Obadiah’s warning: “As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.”

Obadiah’s vision doesn’t end in a time of judgement and fear, although the people do have to live through that dark time to get to the other side. Like the amaryllis blooming on my table, the ancient text reminds us that God is present amidst their suffering. God sees the acts of the wicked. And God’s goodness will triumph in the end.

I had my few hours of despair this week. But my blooming amaryllis won’t let me stay in that despair. It reminds me, every day, that my hope is in a God who is still here and who still requires the same of us today as of people in the 6^thcentury B.C.E: to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.